


Sad Girl

by honeymink



Category: Cracks (2009)
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 2, F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-09-30 12:47:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10163354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeymink/pseuds/honeymink
Summary: Perhaps she has lost her appetite for stories.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [etoilecourageuse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/etoilecourageuse/gifts).



Sometimes Poppy receives letters, postcards even with exotic motifs and stamps. However, if Di has indeed come across elephants or crocodiles in the wild cannot be readily surmised. Perhaps she has lost her appetite for stories, although she still wants to be a dancer like Margot Fonteyn. She writes, her teacher at the Royal Ballet thinks her auburn hair too unruly. No amount of lacquer keeps it in a tidy bun. Of course this has never been a problem when diving.

Ten years later, the platform looks shabby, the damp has peeled the paint, the wood is worm-eaten. There is no sign of the rowing boat or Miss G’s deckchair. But there is the smell of damp earth. Poppy is still slim and elegant, wears mostly white. She rises suddenly and pushes away from the plank into the dark water.

“Turner, you can do better than that!” she hears Miss G’s voice from afar. “All you need is to desire it.”

Fiamma was right, it’s too cold to swim.

As the new librarian at St. Mathilda’s, Poppy still likes stories. But at times stories and lies are hard to tell apart. And when a story is repeated often enough, a lie may become a truth. Like the story of Miss G’s childhood, that Mrs. Willis said was like something out of Dickens. Poppy looks at old photographs on the staffroom walls. Miss G at twelve, at fifteen, at eighteen. A bit lonely, a bit sober. Miss G as a member of staff. Now radiant and glamorous. A picture with the diving team. All of them with their red sashes. 

“Miss G is fearless and true, and an example to everyone of us,” she remembers Di saying.

But Poppy has read Mary Kingsley now.

***

Weeks later Poppy meets Miss G in the village, sitting in a faded raincoat on a bench away from the road. She can smell the thick smoke of Miss G’s cigarette and wants to hurry past. But Miss G rises and accosts her. Poppy has no desire to have tea with her, but she insists.

“Precious Poppy, Reckless Radfield… and Fiamma of course,” Miss G is lost in thought, black circles under her eyes.

The room is small but spotless. She keeps feeding Poppy four sugared rolls and three jam tarts and gives her a quarter of lemon sherbets to take home.

“You did not travel. In fact, I think you have never left the island,” Poppy exclaims.

Miss G stares into the distance. “Fiamma and I, we had a great deal in common, you know. No matter if your experience comes from a book or from life. Though maybe I envied her that and wished she had taken me away. There was really no reason why we shouldn’t have been the best of friends.”

The sudden feeling of pity is uncomfortable and overwhelming. Poppy has trouble breathing. Is it the truth or a story Miss G tells herself? And does it matter?

“Perhaps,” she finally says. “Except she didn’t want you.”

Poppy smooths down her white dress, slides the remaining half of her tea to Miss G and leaves.

**~Fin~**


End file.
